Here’s the cool part – I think, since I just learned it. You can have the Azure Account Extension installed (again, you can install it directly or you can get it as a dependency) you also get the ability to get an Azure Cloud Shell directly inside VS Code. That means a little container spins up in the Cloud and you can get a real bash shell or a real PowerShell shell quickly. AND the Azure Cloud Shell automatically is logged in as you and already has a ton of tools pre-installed.

Here’s how you do it.

It will pop up a message with a “copy & open” button. It’ll launch a browser, then you enter a special code after logging into Azure to OAuth VS Code into your Account account.

At this point, open a Cloud Shell with Shift-Ctrl-P and type “Bash” or “PowerShell”…it’ll autocomplete so you can type a lot less, or setup a hotkey.

Your Cloud Shell will appear along side your local terminals!

Note that there’s a “clouddrive” folder mapped to your Azure Storage so you can keep stuff in there. Even though the Shell goes away in about 20 min of non-use, your stuff (scripts, whatever) is persisted.

And finally, when you type “azure” or “az” for the various Azure CLI (Command Line Interface) tools, you’ll find you’re already authenticated/logged into Azure, so you can create VMs, list websites, manage Kubenetes clusters, all from within VS Code. I’m still exploring, but I’m enjoying what I’m seeing.